The 14 towns will be “set free” from certain rules and regulations in a trial scheme aimed at reviving them after years of decline.

The launch of the scheme was announced by the Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs on Friday, and means that, for example, towns will be permitted to give extra subsidies to business owners who want to rent currently-empty town centre units.

They will also be allowed to cut down protected forest if it has taken the form of scrub and stops the town from feeling congruous; and to rent out empty commercial premises as housing in town centres.

The towns included in the trial are: Assens, Faaborg, Grindsted, Hornslet, Ikast, Nordborg, Nykøbing Sjælland, Odder, Otterup, Rødekro, Rønne, Sakskøbing, Støvring and Vamdrup, after their applications to the trial scheme were accepted.

A political agreement from 2021 paved the way for the new deregulation scheme the towns will hope to benefit from. The scheme is reported to cost the government 130 million kroner.

“I’m very much looking forward to seeing the result. I hope that this will be a part of what puts more life into the centre of medium-sized Danish towns,” the minister for rural districts Louise Schack Elholm said in a statement.

“This is a number of different initiatives, nine in total, that we are making as legal exemptions,” Elholm said.

Some 32 towns initially applied for the scheme.

“It’s incredibly good to see how many municipalities are interested in getting more life into their town centres. The plan was for 10 towns to be selected but there were so many good projects that we agreed on 14 towns,” she said.